SACTWU welcomes the announcement by government today of the first wave of products designated in terms of the new preferential procurement regulations, which come into effect today.

Its effect will be to compel all spheres of government, including parastatals and provincial and local governments to purchase only locally manufactured designated products from today.

We note that clothing, textile, footwear and leather products have been included in this first wave of designation. While we await full details of the products designated, we welcome this as a major boost for local manufacturing and, in particular, a significant contributor to saving and creating jobs in the clothing, textile, footwear and leather industry. This initiative dovetails well with government’s other efforts to strengthen our industry, including industrial support incentive measures and increased efforts to deal with customs fraud.

The National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry of South Africa, Bargaining Council, is hosting its 9TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING on 29 November 2011.

The media is invited to attend the 2nd session when addresses will be delivered by:

The Minister of Trade & Industry (Rob Davis), the bargaining council Chairperson, Secretariat and a Representative of SACTWU and the Employer
Parties to the Council. Keynotte Speaker att tthe meettiing wiillll be:: Dr Rob Davis, Minister of Trade & Industry (11h30). The meeting is to be held in the

The offices of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) in Newcastle were gutted by fire last week on Monday 14 November 2011. The destruction of our premises comes in the wake of moves by the union to highlight atrocious labour and human rights’ abuses occurring in clothing factories in this KwaZulu-Natal town. It also follows efforts by SACTWU, the clothing bargaining council, the Department of Labour and the Department of Home Affairs to ensure that Newcastle clothing companies comply with South African labour laws and industry agreements.

We have previously indicated our knowledge of threats against the safety of some of our officials in reprisal for raids conducted at some Newcastle clothing companies in late September 2011. We therefore urge the Newcastle authorities to investigate the possibility of arson. We also categorically state that SACTWU shall not be deterred from our fight for decent work for clothing workers in Newcastle.

The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) held its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting from 10 to 12 November 2011 in Cape Town.

During the NEC discussion on the union’s Save Jobs Campaign, a report on the state of the clothing, textile, footwear and leather (CTFL) industry was tabled.

This report showed a significant slowdown in retrenchments in the industry. According to the report and based on information from the union’s job loss database, the industry experienced a drop of more than 50% in jobs lost in the first nine months of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. Compared to 2009, the picture is even rosier with 64% fewer jobs lost.

This slowdown is mainly attributed to the assistance for the CTFL industry by government in the form of support measures to increase factories’ competitiveness and a programme to deal with customs fraud. SACTWU’s efforts to increase demand for local goods and to ensure the full implementation of the industry development strategy through its Save Jobs Campaign were also highlighted as a significant contributor.

ISSUED BY ANDRE KRIEL, SACTWU GENERAL SECRETARY

If further information is required, kindly contact Etienne Vlok, SACTWU’s Research Director, on 021 4474570.

After an evening of glitz and glamour the winners of the SACTWU Spring Queen 2011 will now take to the streets in the Spring Queen Winners Parade. The parade starts at 12h00 from the SACTWU Spring Queen’s factory Sheraton. The parade will move to Epping at 13h00 and then from 14h30 onwards in Salt River.

Peter Blond & Associates, a Cape Town based clothing manufacturing company, has announced on Thursday last week that it intends to grow its current employment levels by 100 new jobs (25% growth) by the 23rd of December this year. The announcement was made by company CEO, Mr Eckhardt Oeltz. Peter Blond currently employs just under 400 workers. This is the first major new employment growth announced in the clothing sector in any metro area, for many years. The announcement follows closely on the signature of a groundbreaking new agreement between the Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) and clothing employers. The agreement was signed on Wednesday this week under the auspices of the national bargaining council for the clothing industry. This agreement provides, for the first time, for a lower entry wage rate for new employees in the industry, while protecting the existing wage levels and consequential employment security of all currently employed workers. As part of this agreement, clothing employers have committed to grow employment in compliant companies in the industry by 15% by March 2014. This is expected to result in at least 5000 new jobs in the industry over the next two and a half years, growing at a rate of at least 3% once every six months until then.

Currently employed clothing workers will receive a wage increases of between 6.5% in metro areas and 9.2% in non-metro areas, back-dated to 1st September this year (the date when the increases were due).

SACTWU has welcomed the Peter Blond new employment growth announcement and expects further once to follow.

This past week many clothing factories in Newcastle were exposed for seriously violating workers’ human and labour rights.

The findings arose from raids on twelve Newcastle clothing manufacturers conducted by the Department of Labour, the Department of Home Affairs, the SA Police Service, the industry bargaining council and the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU), following widespread complaints from workers about the conditions they have to work under.

The raids confirmed the reports of factory workers and earlier findings of SACTWU:

With regards to toilets

At almost all companies that we surveyed workers are not supplied with toilet paper. Instead they are expected to use pieces of fabric supplied by the company. Instead of flushing these fabric off-cuts down the toilet, workers are expected to place these off-cuts in bags or boxes next to the toilet. These bags or boxes are often only removed once a week, resulting in filthy, smelly and unhygienic conditions.

Where toilet paper is supplied, workers are often expected to pay for the use thereof, even though they receive very low wages. Employers deduct this payment from workers’ weekly wages.

It has been reported to us that, in certain factories, workers do not even have the use of toilets but are expected to use buckets.

Where workers have the use of toilets, it is often totally inadequate. For example, the Department of Labour reports that “in one instance it was found that only one toilet was shared by almost sixty male and female employees”.

Workers in some factories have to pay penalties if they stay in the toilet for longer than a couple of minutes. These penalties are then deducted from their weekly wages.

With regards to the employment of undocumented foreign workers, the Department of Labour’s report on the raids state, “The inspection also exposed the practice of hiring illegal foreign labour from countries like Lesotho, Swaziland and China resulting in the SAPS together with Immigration Officers arresting and detaining almost forty six foreigners.” The inspection teams further found that several factories had set up compounds where foreign workers were housed under horrible conditions. SACTWU is also aware that at one factory foreign workers are housed in a shipping container on the factory premises. The Department of Labour’s report reflects recent findings by the Department of Home Affairs who uncovered similar practices at other clothing factories in Newcastle. The employment of undocumented foreign workers is usually only done to evade labour and human rights as such workers are vulnerable and have no or very little recourse to the law.

With regards to unemployment benefits

Following the raids, the Department reported that, “Employers were also found to be on the wrong side of the law when it came to making declarations and paying contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).” This is in line with the reports from workers and our own findings that dozens of clothing factories in Newcastle do not pay UIF to the Department of Labour, including factories that have been around for decades. This means that should workers be retrenched, they would not be able to use the social protection system provided by government for the unemployed as they would be disqualified from claiming unemployment benefits.

Where companies actually pay UIF contributions to the Department of Labour, they often only pay for a portion of their workforce, meaning a substantial number of workers would not be eligible for social protection were they to be retrenched.

Our findings also indicate that some companies deduct workers’ UIF contributions from their weekly wages but do not pay these contributions to the Department of Labour. This is tantamount to theft.

The problems above are not particular to the clothing companies which were raided. They are widespread in the clothing sector in Newcastle. Yet neither are the abuses listed above the only abuses which clothing workers in Newcastle suffer.

Says Andre Kriel, SACTWU’s General Secretary, “Recently, some commentators have rallied around certain Newcastle clothing employers and lauded their resistance to paying the legally-prescribed wages as holding the key to the future of South Africa’s unemployment problem through a more flexible labour market with lower wages. As has been shown during these raids, this so-called key involves abusing workers’ most basic labour and human rights and a return to the exploitation of workers seen during apartheid.”

SACTWU condemns this illegality and abuse of workers’ most basic rights. We congratulate the Department of Labour, the Department of Home Affairs, the industry bargaining council, and the SA Police Service for their good work. We call on government to continue its crackdown on illegal employment practices and human rights abuses in the clothing industry.

We also place on record that we are aware of threats to the safety of some SACTWU officials in reprisal for our fight for human rights and dignity in Newcastle.

Issued by Chris Gina, SACTWU National Organising Secretary.

For more information, contact Chris Gina on 031 3011351 or 082 9409456.

The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) rejects SARU’s most recent public claim that the majority of Springbok rugby supporters gear was produced locally. The evidence on the retail store shelves so clearly proves otherwise.
We challenge SARU to subject their claim to an independent audit. This will once and for all empirically expose the truth.
SACTWU welcome SARU’s further statement that the rugby governing body is “firmly committed” to increase local procurement in future.
We will now seek a meeting with SARU in order to concretise the implementation practicalities of their public commitment to increase local manufacturing of rugby supporters gear.

We are of the view that this is the most constructive route to immediately pursue whilst we all simultaneously throw our weight behind the national team for a successful 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign.

Issued by
Andre Kriel
General Secretary
SACTWU

For any further information or comments, please contact FACHMY ABRAHAMS; Coordinator in the Office of the General Secretary on 0825222386 or 021-4474570
]]>sam@sactwu.org.za (Website Head)2011Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:12:11 +0000Clothing Workers in Newcastlehttp://sactwu.org.za/pr-and-news/archived-2011/202-clothing-workers-in-newcastle
http://sactwu.org.za/pr-and-news/archived-2011/202-clothing-workers-in-newcastleSTATEMENT:

Earlier this week, the Business Report published an op-ed piece by SACTWU’s National Organising Secretary, Chris Gina, dealing with the struggle of clothing workers in Newcastle. The published op-ed piece was edited quite extensively with significant information cut from the version submitted by SACTWU.

Below, for your information, we provide the full article submitted to the Business Report.

Clothing Workers in Newcastle

The cost of being a clothing worker in Newcastle is high. It costs between R50 and R100 a week for a worker to travel to and from work, if one takes a bus or taxi and lives in Madadeni or Osizweni. Household electricity can cost R70 a week, while rent costs on average about R40 a week.

The food and grocery expenses of low-wage workers are limited to basic goods, often simple carbohydrates which provide quick energy and fill one up rapidly. Bread, pap, flour, rice, potatoes, beans, sugar, cooking oil, washing powder and soap are bought in bulk and cost a worker at least R220 a week.

If workers spend on other items – such as vegetables, meat, onions, tea, coffee, milk, crèche, airtime, children’s transport to school, children’s school lunch, or even toothpaste, medication, toilet paper or clothing, amongst other things – their overall costs are higher.

Workers’ expenses are often greater than the present legal minimum wage in Newcastle for a starting machinist, R416.50 a week, or even that of a qualified machinist, R489 a week.

Despite this, commentators often refer to Newcastle when arguing for greater labour and wage flexibility with some Newcastle employers proposing a reduced minimum wage of R280 per week.

Would you be prepared to work 40 to 45 hours a week for R280? For that matter, would you be able to live off the legal Newcastle minimum wage of R416.50 per week?

Clothing workers are often sole bread winners who support at least five dependents. This means once a worker’s transport to work is paid, a wage of R416.50 is the equivalent of R8.13 per day per dependent. For a wage of R280 per week it would be the equivalent of R4.88 per day per dependant.

That R416.50 per week is considered “too high” is indicative of the skewed values of our society. For while clothing workers are often lambasted for wanting higher wages, few people complain about the incomes of South Africa’s executives, including executives at the clothing retailers where many of the garments made in Newcastle end up. For example, one clothing retailer CEO earned R8.55 million in the past year. It is the equivalent of R164 000 a week – about 400 times more than a clothing worker. No wonder South Africa is the most unequal country in the world.

The fact is that poverty wage workers may have a job, but their quality of life is little better than the unemployed. Even the demands of a very basic standard of living outstrip their means. In order to cope, workers employ a range of survival strategies including not eating for a few days during the week, relying on the support of their extended families and borrowing money from micro lenders at great cost.

We often hear that “half a loaf is better than none” and that this kind of struggle is a bitter pill to swallow on the road of progress. It is an opinion heavy with the hypocrisy of classism, articulated by the comfortable (who have enough loaves) who are divorced from the realities of life for poor and unemployed people.

Admittedly, sometimes workers also say “something is better than nothing”. When this is heard by ears deaf to the complexities of class, the sentiment is believed at face value. Workers’ desperation is then paraded as validation for subjecting them to poverty wages. But this is not the full story of what workers are saying. Time and time again during meetings I have held with Newcastle workers, they have unambiguously said “We are scared of losing our jobs. But we are not happy with our wages. We cannot live off them. We want more money.” Workers in Isithebe, Qwa Qwa and Botshabelo say the same things.

Is it possible for clothing workers in South Africa to receive better wages and still keep their jobs? Many employers and commentators would have us believe clothing jobs can only be kept if wages are dropped. The SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) believes they are wrong.

Our industry needs a longer term and sustainable solution. This exists in the form of the Customised Sector Programme, designed and agreed by SACTWU, business and government. This sector development strategy aims to move the industry away from competitiveness based only on price and towards improved productivity, work organisation, skill levels, machinery, quality and delivery times. This strategy will add value to goods and give manufacturers a greater opportunity to get their products into local retailers while at the same time securing a higher wage for workers.

What some Newcastle employers are proposing is impractical in the medium- to long-term. South Africa cannot compete in the race to the bottom. After all, the weekly wage of a clothing worker in Bangladesh is about R65, with many other countries paying similar low wages. We cannot win this race to the bottom.

But we can win if we focus on industry development in the manner identified in the sector development strategy and by implementing this strategy’s programmes.

In a march organised by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU), 3000 clothing workers are currently protesting against poverty wages and exploitation in Newcastle.

The march has brought Newcastle to a standstill.

The workers have handed memoranda to the Newcastle Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry.

The memoranda call on
- all Newcastle clothing factories to become part of the phase-in program of the bargaining council which is aimed at ensuring compliance with the legal minimum wage and will result in many workers’ wages increasing

- Newcastle employers to stop claiming that workers are prepared to accept poverty wages and to stop pretending that workers support their non-compliance with the laws of South Africa

- Newcastle employers to stop refusing to give workers weekly payslips as stipulated in South African law. Without payslips workers cannot produce evidence of a weekly income and so cannot buy goods on credit and cannot provide evidence of UIF contributions if they lose their job and want to claim unemployment benefits

- the United Clothing and Textile Association (UCTA) to withdraw its case against the Minister of Labour for extending the wage agreement to vulnerable clothing workers across South Africa and